23 March 2018

South of France, 23 March

Our first port of call this morning was the Cora in Marsonnay-La-Côte for groceries, diesel and gas, and then we went to Nuits-St-Georges, where there was what three Swan Whisperer thought was a vineyard but turned out to be a seller of local eau-de-vie, etc. So he bottled that, but we went to a winery for a dégustation and ended up buying a bottle of not-very-nice wine, but still!  Then we went to find the aire which was the main reason for calling into the town, as we thought the services were probably open all year round as, indeed, they proved to be. So we used them, and with the van full and empty in all the relevant places, we drove down to Taizé, where we had lunch in the Community car park. We didn't go in; the place was full of young people, mostly German, and we think we are too old to sit in the floor, queue for hours for a meal and certainly to sleep in a hostel!

It was a lovely drive today, through the vineyards of Burgundy. We've done it several times before, of course, but it was nice today not to be in a hurry and not to have a deadline to meet, or any place we really had to be!

After lunch we drove down to Cluny to visit the Abbey there. Our tickets provided for entry into a museum, too, but we were not very impressed by the exhibits which all seemed to be bits of stone. So we went into the Abbey proper - a film about the old church destroyed in 1789, which I regret to say didn't hold my interest, and then a look round where it had been. To be honest, I preferred the cloisters and the huge garden!


Then I went back to the van and made a cup of tea while the Swan Whisperer climbed a tower, and he came down with some lovely pictures of the view from the top.

After he had drunk his tea, it was time to move on and we had a lovely drive across country to this little village of Marlieux, which is a France Passion goat farm. They let one get far closer to the goats than the place in Alsace where we sometimes go!  Lovely!  And I bought some cheese and some honey, and soon it will be supper time.

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